GRAND PORTAGE Grand Portage: A History of The Sites, People, and Fur Trade

Clerk John Macdonell guided his future readers along the waterways from Grand Portage to Rainy Lake. He counted no fewer than 37 portages, more than one-third of the 98 portages he found between Montreal and Lake Winnipeg. The names and spellings that follow are Macdonell's own. They are of interest to those who today are concerned about the future of this still unspoiled water route, be they summer canoeists or park planners:¹

1. Grand Portage, 3 leagues long
2. Perdrix
3. Grosse Roche
4. Carribou
5. L'Outarde
6. L'Orignal
7. Grand des Cerises
8. & 9. Two vases
10. Petit Portage Noeuf
11. Grand Portage Noeuf, 1/2 league long.
12. La Marte
13. Les Perches
14. Height of Land
15. L'Escalier
16. Le Cheval de Bois
17. Gros des Pins
18. Petit Rocher de Saguinaga
19. Petit Rocher de la Prairie
20. La Prairie
21, 22, & 23. The 3 Roches des Couteaux
24. La Carpe
25. Gros des Bois Blancs
26. Petit des Bois Blancs
27. Grand des Pins
28. La Pointe de Bois
29. Petit Rocher de Lac Croche
30. Le Rideau
31. Le flacon
32, 33, & 34. Les 3 Portages La croix
35. & 36. Les deux petits Portages Neuf.
37. La Chaudiere in view of Port L. L. P.

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1. Gates, Five Fur Traders, p. 117.

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Henry Hind, in 1860, published a more detailed description of the route.² Despite some small problems in Hind's tables, caused by poor editing, a seemingly accurate count emerges of the portages, rapids, décharges, lakes, navigable channels, and "lake straits" encountered. In total, Hind found the distance to be 207.86 miles, of which 16-1/3 miles were non-navigable (15.3 miles where canoes had to be carried, 0.6 miles where canoes had to be lightened—décharges, and 0.3 miles of rapids). He identified 34 portages, 4 décharges, 12 rapids, 28 lakes, and 23 lake straits and navigable streams. By Hind's time, French had given way to English names and many or the portages were without names at all:

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2. Henry Youle Hind, Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857... (2 vols., London, 1860), 2, 427-33.

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